expressed it, so high as to need a telescope.

Both About and Th. Gautier believed in their friend's newly-developed
talent, but art-critics and the public held aloof. No medal was decreed
by the jury, and, accustomed as he had been to triumph after triumph,
his fondest hopes for the second time deceived, Dore grew bitter and
acrimonious. That his failure had anything to do with the real question
at issue, namely, his genius as a historic painter, he would never for a
moment admit. Jealousy, cabals, prejudice only were accountable.

The half dozen years following were divided between delightfully gay and
varied sociabilities, feverishly prolonged working hours and foreign
travel. The millions of francs earned by his illustrations gave him
everything he wanted but one, that one, in his eyes, worth all the rest.

Travel, a splendid studio, largesses--he was generosity itself--all
these were within his reach. The craved-for renown remained ungraspable.

Even visits to his favourite resort, Barr, brought disenchantment. He
found old acquaintances and the country folks generally wanting in
appreciation. With greater and lesser men, he subacidly said to himself
that a man was no prophet in his own country.

Ten years after the fiasco of his first canvases in the Salon came an
invitation to England and the alluring project of a Dore gallery. The
Dore Bible and Tennyson, with other works, had paved the way for a right
royal reception. The streets of London, as he could well believe, were
paved with gold. But many were the _contra_. "I feel the presentiment,"
he wrote to a friend, "that if I betake myself to England, I shall break
with my own country and lose prestige and influence in France. I cannot